Thursday, October 16, 2008

Inspired byMartha Stewart's Boston "Scream" Pie

In the October 2008 issue of Martha Stewart Living, she has a cute Boston "Scream" Pie. It's a Halloween themed Boston Cream Pie: chocolate-pumpkin cake filled with a spiced pastry cream and topped with chocolate ganache.

Well... I came close!

By the way, I brought this into work on Wednesday, but I think this cake is really appropriate today considering the Red Sox and Tampa Bay game! What a comeback by Boston!

Cake: The chocolate-pumpkin layers (8-inch rounds) came out moist and a perfect blend of chocolate and pumpkin (it uses a full 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree!)

Filling: Okay, the spiced pastry cream...Ugh. I tried to make this TWO times but it was Fail. Fail. I thought I took it to exactly 160 degrees, but it jumped into the pastry cream abyss and fell way, way down into a truly messed up pile 'o yuck. Luckily, no photos of the mess!

So, I ended up making a spiced cream cheese filling: 1 block of cream cheese, 1 cup of powdered sugar (sifted), 1/4 t each cinnamon and ground ginger, and a bit of nutmeg and vanilla.

Cake + Filling + Ganache

Topping: I made the ganache in the morning before toting this heavy weight cake into the library. I cut the recipe in HALF and still ended up with too much. Wow, perhaps Martha and her staff have a chocolate addiction or something. (I only used cream and chocolate and skipped the corn syrup).